Nutrition North Canada Engagement 2016 community meeting #2: Ulukhaktok/Holman, NT, May 31, 2016

Summary of who attended

Community residents/Elders, community corporation board Members, the mayor, Hunters & Trappers Association, and Hamlet Office/Senior Administrative Officer participated at this engagement session. To protect the privacy of the participants, the names of individual participants are not disclosed.

Priorities and key issues discussed

Here is a brief summary of what was heard at the Ulukhaktok engagement session, focusing on the following themes:

Program sustainability and cost effectiveness

• Subsidize access to traditional and country foods such as supplies to hunt, fish and trap these types of food, (e.g., hunting equipment, fuel, fish nets, tents, boats, stoves, shells, oil and gas).
• Give highest level subsidy for staple items such as lard, flour, rice, berries, muskox, fish, and reindeer.

Fairness and consistency

• Criteria for subsidies across communities should be based on remoteness/distance, population size, and freight costs.
• Mixed feedback across the community as to whether hotels/restaurants should be part of the Program. Support only if they serve nutritious and not deep-fried food.
• It is difficult for small, local stores to compete with large retailers due to their buying power and ability to negotiate premium freight contracts.

Transparency

• Concerns raised as to whether the retailer and supplier are actually passing the subsidy through their systems, and on to consumers.
• Concerns raised regarding the quality of the food (e.g., spoilage, expiry dates) being sold, and when airlines ship food. Program should have a mechanism to assess quality of food being sold in stores.
• Program is too complicated and not understood in the community.

Visibility

• Need for more Program information to be provided through flyers/brochures, newsletters and community Facebook page.
• Information should be provided in a simplified manner, and in the local dialect/language.
• Need for education of the retail staff so that they can better educate the community about the Program.
• The NNC Advisory Board's profile should be more visible to the community, providing both oversight and advocacy for them.
• Awareness should be raised regarding the Direct Personal Orders option.

Innovation

• Support smaller point-of-sale system for local suppliers to be able to sell subsidized country food (muskox, char and caribou).
• Support family-to-family sharing of country and traditional foods across communities and regions.
• Support the building of greenhouses, educational programs related to developing greenhouses (and canning for preservation), and the related materials needed (vegetable seeds/ seedlings, soil).
• Need for a dedicated supplier for fresh produce (in Yellowknife), and a registered store in each Region for Direct Personal Orders.
• Give program funding directly to communities.
• Establish not-for-profit food depots in each community.
• Provide funding for commercial country food processing equipment in each community.

Other

• Appreciation expressed for Health Canada's on-the-land programs targeted at children and youth.
• See a continued need for the Program, but would like lower consistent prices.